


Ladbroke Grove

by pocketbookangel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Irene is Anais Nin, Post-Reichenbach, books and the people who write them, john's moustache, mentions of John/Mary - Freeform, rantmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketbookangel/pseuds/pocketbookangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Irene receives a threatening letter, Greg and John help her find the culprit.</p>
<p>Prompt:  Lestrade meets Irene Adler. Maybe Irene, John and Lestrade have to work together for some reason? Or make Irene the villain, I don't mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ladbroke Grove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CherryBlossomTide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryBlossomTide/gifts).



> Written for the Sherlock Rant Meme fic exchange.
> 
> Special thanks to [Evelyn_B](http://archiveofourown.org/users/evelyn_b) for looking this over even though _Sherlock_ is not her fandom.

Someone more poetic than Greg Lestrade might have looked over the park's showy green to orange display and allowed his thoughts to dwell on how this 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' brought back dreams of lost loves and squandered time. But Greg never voluntarily read poetry, so he ignored the brilliant leaves and uncharacteristically blue skies. Instead of appreciating nature, he congratulated himself on his Jason Bourne-like evasion of the black car that had waited for him outside Scotland Yard.

Unfortunately for Greg's peace of mind, a stroll through St. James was not as effective as parkour when on the run from the Government. The Government's car was waiting for him on the other side.

Greg tapped on the car's window and the door swung open."Tell your boss, if he wants to talk to me, he can come over for dinner. He knows where I live." Greg knew Mycroft Holmes would never take him up on such an invitation; if he did, there was a frozen lasagne, notable for its lack of real beef, he hadn't thrown out yet. Unless... perhaps Mycroft was going to take care of his problem. Greg revised his dinner plans. If Mycroft was going to be pompous and lecturing, lasagne. If he was going to be helpful, the organic beef bourguignon from Whole Foods, which had been purchased after he'd seen the lasagne on television.

Greg kicked aside the chocolate wrappers and lager cans that blocked the path to his flat. The high ceilings and bedroom loft had proved to be almost impossible to heat, and the stairs were difficult to climb after a night of drinking, not that he'd had many of those recently. Renting this loft in a warehouse conversion off Kentish Town Road had been Sherlock's idea, but Sherlock was gone before the paint even had time to dry.

The doorbell rang before Greg could spend too much time wondering what Sherlock had known and when. Mycroft had stopped by for dinner after all. Times must be desperate.

"Listen, Mycroft, before you come in--" He stopped. His guest was definitely not Mycroft Holmes.

The woman at the door was a tall, with dark hair and brilliant blue eyes that held both promise and a hint of mockery. "I'm the one you invited to dinner," she said. She stepped into his flat, quickly taking in the state of Greg's life. "It's difficult to be adventurous when you sleep in a loft," she murmured. "But you could manage, couldn't you?"

"What do you want?" For a moment he wondered if she was Mycroft's new assistant. Mycroft liked to talk about the importance of tradition, but when it came to his assistants, he passed over public school types in favour of women with long legs who excelled at unarmed combat.

"You're not any fun. I was a friend of Sherlock's. He told me if I ever needed help, I could come to you." Her eyes met his.

"No, he didn't." 

She smiled. "No, he didn't. That's not his style at all. But I do know he trusted you, so I think I can trust you as well." 

"Maybe. When Sherlock and I first met, he asked if he could talk to the man instead of the policeman. I told him that there was no such person. If there's trouble, I won't conveniently forget anything you tell me," Greg said.

"I don't mind. Today I need a policeman. I received this," she reached in her handbag and handed him two envelopes, each containing a letter. 

The letters inside were vile. Stiff, blocky letters spelled out anatomical details. This is what I will do to you. You won't die, no matter how much you beg.

"The first one came to my apartment in New York. I've received uglier threats online, but this frightens me. People who hate me over Twitter can't be bothered to leave the sofa and do something about it. So I came back to London, and found the second letter waiting for me at the PO box I used to use for business." 

"Both mailed from New York. I can test it for fingerprints--" 

"There's a suspicious lack of any but my own." 

"What do you expect me to do?" 

"Help me find out who sent this. I'll do the rest. I don't know who else to ask. Sherlock always trusted you, said you were the best."

"Did he? Funny he never mentioned you." The woman hadn't given her name, but he'd read something on John's blog: The Woman. This had to be Irene Adler. Greg remembered collecting Sherlock from a posh flat and Sherlock's intense, drugged conversation with its invisible owner. Greg had recorded all of Sherlock's ramblings, just in case they were needed as evidence. According to John, The Woman was dead. There weren't any procedures for filing a police report from beyond the grave.

_He never mentioned you._ Irene tried to cover the hurt she felt as these words, and it made Greg feel a little sorry for her."I'll see what I can do. Call me tomorrow at my office and we can set up a time to talk." Irene gracefully declined his offer of dinner, which was just as well because he hadn't decided which meal to defrost.

Greg turned on _Newsnight_ until it was so loud the voices bounced off the walls and invaded his neighbour's front room. There would be another angry note waiting for him in the morning. He waited. The television covered the sound of the trapdoor opening and the footsteps in the hallway. The sound might have been masked, but nothing could cover the smell. Greg didn't need to turn his head to see he was no longer alone.

"Did you hear all that?" he whispered, his mouth exaggerating the shapes of the words. Sherlock had said the television would interfere with the listening devices planted in his flat, but talking still didn't feel safe.

Sherlock nodded. He silently crossed the room and picked up one of the letters Irene had left. He held it up to the light, letting it tell him its story, watermarks, ink, anything that could be seen without a microscope.

Greg still couldn't believe the man with the dirty hair and bent shoulders was Sherlock. Sometimes he wondered if he had gone mad, taken in a tramp who was too happy at the prospect of a place out of the cold to question why he was being called an odd name. It wasn't just the smell or the disguise, that was an inevitable part of life in hiding. There was something different in Sherlock's eyes.

He returned with a whiteboard and black pen and began to scrawl: **Expensive paper, but v common, fountain pen, rare ink, but not custom, New York postmark obviously educated in the UK, disguised handwriting, someone who knows graphology, too deliberate.**

**What does it mean?**

Sherlock erased his notes. **Talk** **to John** , Sherlock wrote. He looked at Greg and said something else, but the television drowned out his words. **Help her**.

The last time Greg had seen John, John had been grey and a bit ghostly, and had responded to Greg's attempts at making things right with wary politeness. "You know none of this was your fault," he'd said, but clearly meant the opposite. A year later, even under the pub's terrible lights, he appeared healthy. He'd grown a full moustache and seemed to be working on a beard. He kept stroking his chin, as if he was encouraging it to grow.

"So, Irene Adler?" Greg asked.

"Oh god, she's back. I knew I never should have trusted Mycroft... he told me she was dead. He's such a liar." 

"I don't think he was the one who lied to you." 

"Of all the people to come back to life, why did it have to be her?" John finished his drink. "I need another before I can talk about that woman."

Greg bought another round, thought about how Irene's dress suggested there would be rewards for bad behaviour, added shots to the order. 

"Good start. Now, did Sherlock ever tell you anything about her, anything?" 

"I know what I read on your blog." It had taken all of Greg's self-control not to post lengthy corrections to John's stories.

"She ran her game on him and he played it to the end. That makes no sense, sorry. When it came to Irene, he suddenly discovered "feelings." I don't know what she was really like, but I do know what she wanted him to think."

"Someone's been sending threatening letters. It's been a long time since I've seen so much malice on the page and since they followed her across the Atlantic, it could be serious. Considering her not-quite-alive status, an unofficial investigation might help her more than I could." 

"Are you asking me to help her? I can't. I mean, I will... it's what he would have done." 

The only sign of Sherlock's presence in the flat was a wet mouldy smell that clung to the air. Greg took out the whiteboard he'd bought the day after Sherlock's silent resurrection. **Tell John you're back** , he wrote, then left it next to the trapdoor to the cellar. When he woke up in the morning, it was propped up next to his bedside lamp. **John's flat is safe now** , it said. 

Irene was completely out of place in John's flat. Even in jeans and trainers, which looked like they might have been stolen from Molly, she was far too glamorous for his sofa. The coffee table was privileged to hold her handbag, and an obsequious mug thrilled to contain her tea. John felt betrayed by the disloyalty of the inanimate objects in his flat. 

The list of people who might have a grudge against Irene was shorter than John expected: 

The Royal Family 

Mycroft Holmes 

Wendy Darling 

A Very Important Artist 

A Famous Novelist 

A Conservative MP 

A Commander at Scotland Yard 

~~John Watson~~

"We can cross off the Royals and Mycroft. They have other ways of making your life a misery. Who's Wendy Darling? That can't be a real name."

"Of course it's fake. It's Mycroft's bodyguard. She wouldn't tell me her name, so I guessed. I said, is it it Wendy, darling? And she said yes. She said yes to a lot that night." Irene smirked at John, who was torn between annoyance and a futile wish that he could have been there. "Wendy and I parted on quite good terms, but if Mycroft is against me, she'll follow her master's wishes." 

"This one," John pointed to the MP's name. "Your resurrection could be bad for his career." 

"It did end very badly, but I was merely one of a long line of women he hired to wear a school uniform and cane him. Even now, it's shocking what a public school education can do to a man."

"I'll discreetly look into that one," Greg said. "Expensive paper and fancy ink, what about the artist?" 

"Oh, her... the not-longer-Young British Artist. I have to admit I didn't play fair, but I can't imagine her spending more than five minutes on a project she couldn't sell."

"How about this one, Mark Alton, the writer? Mycroft said you broke up his marriage." John had heard the writer's name recently, but couldn't remember where. 

"Don't let Mycroft's addiction to _The Daily Mail_ lead you astray. Their marriage was already crumbling. Mark didn't like that his wife was representing celebrity chefs and memoirs by the cast of _The Only Way is Essex_. Would you like to know what he did like?"

"No," Greg said.

"Yes. It could be relevant," John explained. 

"He wanted me to dress up as a character from his book, well, you can imagine the rest." She gave them some time for imagining.

"I really can't..." John said.

"He wanted me to read to him."

Greg could see the appeal in something like that. "His wife, Pamela Alton?"

"That was just sex and it was free." 

"No wonder he hates you," John said.

"Sending nasty letters might be his style, but he's in California working on the screenplay based on his book," Irene said.

Mark Alton's 1996 bestseller _Ladbroke Grove_ had been called a "tour de force" with "lapidary prose", an "amoral tea party in the ruins of Thatcher's London", and during the turn of the last century, his opinions and collection of waistcoats were often on television, giving evasive answers as to why the novel was called _Ladbroke Grove_ when none of the characters ever left Croydon. The novel's dominatrix femme fatale, Marina Candle, was the inspiration for photoshoots, expensive leather corsets, and an unpleasantly strong absinthe cocktail. Reviews for his subsequent novels generally described them as "lacking the sharp intelligence of _Ladbroke Grove_ " and "having no reason to exist".

"I don't know him from his books," John began rummaging through a pile of old newspapers. "I know him from this." The newspaper was dated two days after the first letter Irene had received. _British novelist: 'It's a Flying Shame'_

Mark Alton had been removed from a LaGuardia - Heathrow flight because he had boarded the flight drunk and proceeded to drink more, pulling mini alcohol bottles out of his suitcase, finally carelessly tossing a tiny Glenfiddich over his shoulder, hitting one of the London cast Matildas, the unlucky occupant of the seat behind his in first class. He had been carried off the plane, sobbing. 

"Do you think he was coming to London to see you?" John asked.

"It's possible." 

"You said you ended on good terms with his wife?" Greg asked.

"Very good terms. We even talked about publishing some of my diaries. I haven't kept one for years, but when I was twenty, I felt I had to write down everything. It makes for some very dramatic reading."

"Why don't you and John go see her tomorrow? If he is the one who wrote this, he's not a threat. Given the current state of air travel in the US, he isn't going to be flying anywhere for quite a long time." Greg studied Irene's list again. "A commander at Scotland Yard?"

Greg went back to his flat, slightly buzzed. He wished he were the kind of person who could use his new knowledge about his boss to make up for his exile to the training centre and the shit cases he'd been getting ever since Sherlock's disappearing act. Irene was good with details and kept excellent records. Knowledge was her version of a thank you note.

He turned on the television the moment he stepped in the door. He hated the noise, but the thought of his dull routines being recorded still made him sick. How long had they been listening, what had they heard before Sherlock returned and alerted him to their presence? 

When he rented this flat, had Sherlock already known he would need a place to hide? Sherlock and John had talked him into seeing some flats in north London. The first one they'd seen, the one in which he and his silent, foul-smelling tenant were now living, was a Victorian warehouse that had been converted into flats. A loft bedroom had been built over the kitchen and dining area, leaving those areas feeling compressed, and there was strange odour in the bath.

The next flat was different. Greg had loved it immediately and John had said it was much better than anything he'd seen during his flat-hunting days. It was on the fifth storey of a modern building, not even ten years old, and from the front room, if you stood at exactly the correct angle, you could see Regent's Canal. The kitchen had a full size washing machine and a dryer with a number he could call for service, no more afternoons at Homebase or messing around with hoses and metal bits. For the first time in his life, Greg would have a choice of walls for his television. It was a beautiful flat. 

"The other flat was better," Sherlock said. 

"It has a smell," Greg said. 

Sherlock vanished with the agent. Ten minutes later he reappeared and informed Greg that he would be getting a £300 discount on the flat with the odd smell.

"I don't remember signing a lease," Greg had complained. Once he had the keys in his hand, the smell seemed to get worse.

"This place is perfect. Look in the cupboard." Sherlock disappeared behind a door next to the bathroom. 

Greg opened it and saw a few cleaning supplies, a broom, some tools. "It's the pipes that lead to the shower," he said. 

"Take that out and look," Sherlock ordered.

A trapdoor hid a narrow staircase which led to darkness. 

"You have a cellar," Sherlock said proudly. "It runs under this entire side. I went down there while you and John were talking the agent about the smell. There's a sealed door at the other end, which I think might lead to a River Fleet access point." 

"A cellar with a door that leads to a sewer. That's your idea of perfect." 

"Twice the flat for less money," Sherlock said. 

"How did you get him to agree to a lower rent." 

"We talked, I made some deductions," Sherlock said. It was clearly something that wouldn't meet with police approval.

Had Sherlock known he might need a place to hide, a place where he could come and go without anyone seeing him? He wouldn't have known Sherlock was living there, only the smell that came from opening and closing the access point gave him away. 

Greg picked up the whiteboard. Sherlock had erased the message and left the board on the table. **Tell John you're back** , he wrote, and left it next to the trapdoor. But Sherlock wasn't in his usual hiding place, he was curled up in Greg's bed, wrapped in layers of blankets, fast asleep. The novelty of the underground lair must have worn off, leaving only cold, damp stones. Greg grabbed the top blanket and went back down the stairs. He turned down the television, but the programme about farming, presenters with accents like his grandparents, invaded his dreams. When he woke up, the whiteboard had been wiped clean and Sherlock was gone.

Pamela Alton's name was on the door of the agency, and her smiling face, surrounded by Page Three girls and footballer's wives, beamed down at John and Irene as they waited for her. John would have known which one Pamela was even if Irene hadn't pointed her out. She was the only one wearing a suit and her sunny blonde hair was almost natural. 

"Irene, sweetie!" Pamela's famous enthusiasm caught Irene in her warm embrace. "It's been too long." She turned to John. 

"Have you met my brother?" 

"Brother?" Pamela looked at Irene and then at John. 

"Different fathers. Our mother was as adventurous as the 1970s and early 80s allowed." 

"That's fairly adventurous. I just got a memoir from a woman who was friends with all of the biggest stars of the 1980s. I've been helping her remember what the sex was like." 

"Oh, Pam, I would love to hear more, but we have a problem. Have you heard from Mark recently?" 

"I saw an interview with him online after the police let him go. My heart broke a little. I'd never seen him look so defeated." 

"I think he might be unhappy with me." 

"He was very unhappy with you, but you shouldn't take it personally. The only thing Mark isn't unhappy with is whisky." 

"Do you think he would ever..." Irene produced the letter. 

"He does think the handwritten note is due for a revival." She read the latter. "This is awful." She set down the letter and stared at John. "If Mark wrote this, he needs help. Please find him," she said. 

John promised Irene he would call her the next day, and he left her catching up with Pamela, whatever that meant. He met Greg at a pub near the Kentish Town flat where they were forced to drink in the dining room. They could have stayed in the beer garden, but Greg knew watching other people smoke would drive him mad. It was better to endure the whimsically mismatched chairs and the bright, clean air. The dining room didn't have many customers: an older couple who were staring at their phones, a man in a leather jacket who was staring at his phone, and a woman who was reading a book.

"So, not the MP and not your boss." John finished his drink. 

"No and no. Did you find the writer? He came through Heathrow yesterday."

"His ex-wife said she hadn't heard from him. Maybe Irene can talk her into calling him again. She's a persuasive woman." John glanced over at the woman who was sitting by herself. The book she was reading had Mark Alton's name printed in shiny letter that were larger than the title, _The Sleep of Unreason_. "Look at that. Maybe the bad publicity is giving his career a boost."

"You should go over there and ask her what she thinks of it," Greg suggested.

John stroked his chin, the location of his future beard. "I would, but she might get the wrong idea. I actually might be off the market, as they say."

Without realising it, Greg had believed that when Sherlock returned, everything would go back to the way it had been before, John and Sherlock living together, Greg using John as a way to talk to Sherlock.

"That's great," Greg said. "How long?" This did explain John's new, healthy appearance.

"A few months, I think. It's good. It's really good." John lowered his voice. "And I think she's been listening to us because she hasn't been turning the pages."

"You were talking very loudly." The woman set down _The Sleep of Unreason_ and frowned at John and Greg.

"Sorry," John said. He smiled apologetically. "We were wondering if the book was any good. I met his wife, ex-wife today."

"It's not bad. It's sort of a prequel and sort of a sequel to _Ladbroke Grove_. Half of it is Marina's diary from when she twenty, and the rest is set in post-apocalyptic London. He really gets Marina's voice right, but the science fiction stuff doesn't do it for me." She turned the book over so they could see Mark Alton's photograph on the back. Floppy hair and a bow tie posed against a bookcase full of thick books, as if he and his waistcoat just happened to be caught deciding between _The Recognitions_ or _Finnegans Wake_. John disliked him immediately.

"Half of it is a diary?" Greg asked. The woman nodded.

"Didn't Irene say something about leaving her diaries with the Altons? John, why don't you ask Irene to meet us here."

"I'll send her a text," John said. His phone rang before he could put it away.

"John, I got your message. Everything is fine, and I am taking care of the problem." There was muffled shouting in the background. 

"Taking care... Irene, what are you doing?" 

"Don't worry about it, darling. You can come see, if you'd like. Don't bring the inspector, he isn't as morally flexible as you." Irene gave John the address for the Alton's house in Primrose Hill.

"Was that Irene?" Greg asked.

"Yes, and it sounds like we need to stop her from doing something stupid." 

Mark Alton no longer resembled the jaunty, floppy haired author on the back cover of _Ladbroke Grove_ or _The Sleep of Unreason_. His colourless, thinning hair was receding even as he stood in the doorway, escaping from his head before anything worse could happen. The smell of alcohol was strong, but he didn't seem intoxicated, more like he'd drunk himself into a permanent hangover. He wilted at the sight of Greg's warrant card.

"Do you really need to come in? Everything's fine," he said. The distinctive sound of a whip crack echoed through the hall. "Or will be." He sighed. 

"If we could just have a look inside..." Greg's smile was the kind that did not acknowledge refusal. 

"It's not what it looks like." Mark stepped aside 

Every wall was lined with overflowing bookcases painted sky blue and grass green. The shelves nearest to the door were devoted to first editions and foreign translations of Alton's novels. _Ladbroke Grove_ had two shelves all to itself. Battersea Power Station loomed over the cover of the French edition, while the back of naked woman, yellow and red blotches hiding anything interesting, lounged on the cover of the American book club edition. 

At first glance, Pamela appeared to be sitting on the floor, leaning against the bright red coffee table with her legs stretched out in front of her. A closer look revealed she was handcuffed to one its spindly legs. Irene stood over her, riding crop in hand. 

"Oh, John, you are a disobedient one. I did ask you to leave the police at home," Irene said. 

"Police?" Pamela's eyes widened as she saw Greg. "Help! I've been kidnapped! Help!" She lurched forward, pulling the table leg loose. Greg helped her to her feet and unlocked the cuffs. 

"Are these mine? No wonder John says you're like Sherlock," Greg muttered. 

"He really says that." Irene smiled. "That's sweet of him."

"Don't you care I've been kidnapped?" Pamela rubbed her wrists. "Arrest her."

"It's not a kidnapping, it's a contract negotiation. Give me what's mine and I'll leave. I don't even expect an apology for those nasty letters." Irene snapped her riding crop against the table, sending back issues of _The London Review of Books_ flying.

"You're not getting anything from us. Do your fucking job and arrest her," Pamela shouted. 

The dull, obstinate expression of someone who has been told "Do your fucking job" settled on Greg's face. He slowly put his handcuffs away and waited for someone to confess. 

"I invented her." Mark nodded at Irene. 

"Such arrogance. You're not even worth beating," Irene said. "Pay me for my diaries, or give them back. Fifty thousand pounds, and sixty percent of what you're getting for the film rights." 

"We're getting net points instead of an upfront payment," Pamela said. 

"Liar." Irene raised her riding crop, and Pamela cowered behind Greg.

"You were dead and I brought you back," Mark said. 

"What do you mean you invented her?" John asked. 

"The moment I saw her, I knew she was the woman from my book. Marina Candle. My femme fatale, my sweet poison."

"Of course I was. You paid me to be her." 

"No." He shook his head sadly. "You were truly her. The diaries confirmed it. How could I not include them in my book?"

"Because they weren't yours, they were mine."

"Here's what we're going to do," Greg said. "We are all going down to the station, Irene is going to charge the Altons with theft, then the Altons can charge her with kidnapping. The newspapers will enjoy it, maybe it will give them another chance to run the photo of you being carried out of the airport."

"Are you threatening us? Are you working with her? I will report you to your superiors." Pamela glared at Greg. 

"It doesn't matter any more." Mark sat down on the sofa and put his feet up on the collapsed table. "Marina always wins in the end. Write her a cheque."

"Give her the diaries back as well," John said. 

"We destroyed them," Pamela said.

"No, you didn't. If you had, you wouldn't care about me. No one would take the word of a dead woman over that of a Booker prize winner. Sorry, shortlisted twice, not a winner," Irene said. 

"Not a winner." Mark began to laugh. It was an ugly, lost sound. "Not a winner at all," he said. 

"By the way, why's the book called _Ladbroke Grove_ when no one ever leaves Croydon?" John asked.

"You," Mark said. "You think it's not happening to you, but it is. Interesting facial hair, that's the first stage." He studied John's emerging beard disdainfully. "You haven't seen them lately, have you? Those girls with Jean Seberg haircuts, those avatars of sexual desire who used to tell you your Oasis singles were rubbish. They're all gone now. Time happened to them just like it's happening to you."

"Right. But why's it called _Ladbroke Grove_?"

Mark slumped over and moaned.

"I think you've killed him," Irene said. "We'd better go."

In the taxi, Irene explained how she'd discovered the fate of her diaries. "I said, is this Mark's latest? She immediately began saying how awful it was, how she felt sorry for Mark... that's when I knew something wasn't right. She never calls the books she's selling _awful_ , she says they have a _unique voic_ e or a _story to tell_."

The whimsically mismatched chairs in the airy pub were just as happy to hold Irene as John's sofa had been. "I really don't want these." Irene handed one spiral notebook to Greg and the other to John. "Souvenir."

"Isn't ten percent the usual fee for an agent?" John asked. 

Irene brushed his foot with the riding crop. "You could come back to mine and we could negotiate," she said. 

"What would you do if I said yes?"

"It would be lovely. But..." She reached over and tapped him gently on the chin. "This isn't working."

"Too much?"

"With your face, moustache or beard, not both."

Lestrade set down the drinks in front of them.

Irene picked up her drink. "I was going to suggest we drink to... but that's morbid and if he were here, he wouldn't appreciate it. So, here's to my return to New York, John's new girlfriend, don't look surprised, of course I can tell, and, what would you like, Greg?"

Better cases, a win for Arsenal, ten minutes alone, truly alone in his flat without the television on.

"The future," Greg said.

Before returning home, Greg stopped in a bookshop and picked up a copy of _Ladbroke Grove_.

"They've made it into a film," the clerk said. "I've heard it's rubbish. Books are always better than the films, unless it's _The Godfather_ or _The Shining_."

"I've met him," Greg said.

"Really? I've heard he's an arse. The new book is supposed to be brilliant, maybe he'll get the Booker this time round."

The smell in his flat was less pronounced and Greg was afraid this meant he was used to it. His nose had adjusted. Sherlock was sprawled on the sofa, watching a programme about making "English" bruschetta. It was Sherlock, the real Sherlock, not the sallow, dark-eyed ghost who had been hiding in the shadows for the past week.

"The bugs are gone. The river police fished their owner out of the drink earlier today. I wasn't the one who threw him in, but if you don't believe me, you can check their reports." Sherlock turned off the television. "I haven't been gone that long and they're trying to update beans on toast. Completely unnecessary. Mycroft is sending a car, so you won't have to endure me for more than five more minutes."

"Since you didn't ask, Irene is fine."

"I knew she would be. Thank you for that." Greg thought about giving him Irene's diary, but that would be borrowing trouble. He would never know what had passed between Sherlock and Irene; it was over.

"John is fine."

Sherlock was silent.

"You should have told him you were back."

"I saw the two of you at the pub. He looked happy."

After Sherlock left, Greg picked up the book he'd bought and read the author's biography on the back. It told him that he and Mark Alton had been born in the same year, married in the same year, and divorced in the same year, but they'd emerged from these universals into very different places. He started to read, but he was too tired to concentrate and he didn't want to think Irene was anything like the woman described in the book.

John had looked happy. He was probably with his girlfriend now, telling her about the past few days and Irene's unexpected return. Irene, the woman who always won, would be safe in her airport hotel, dreaming on the bleached white sheets, confident of the money that she would find in her American bank account. After so many nights hiding behind noise, the quiet felt strange. It was London quiet, traffic, distant trains, exuberant drunks stumbling back from the pub, televisions in other flats, but to Greg it sounded like peace.


End file.
